SNIPPETS, our daily collection of short items and comments, is here.

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Answers to last week's "Current Question" are here.  The new "Current Question" is here, in the right-hand column.

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OUR AUDIO COMMENTARIES HAVE BEGUN.  TO LISTEN, GO HERE.

(A new commentary - what John McCain must do tonight - has been posted.)

TUESDAY,  OCTOBER 7,  2008

11:52 P.M. ET:   Karl Rove, on Fox, said that McCain did what he had to do to set the tone of the rest of the campaign.  I have my doubts.  The world will little note, nor long remember what they said here.  This debate will be forgotten quickly.  The last debate is next Wednesday, the 15th.  That means that there will be three full weeks of campaigning afterward.  Unless something big happens in the last debate, those three weeks may turn out to be more important than all the other weeks of the campaign put together - assuming the polls tighten enough to make the race competitive at that point.  Maybe this has just begun.

10:56 P.M. ET:   The headline on Drudge says it all:  BORING.

10:40 P.M. ET:   A Frank Luntz focus group gave the debate to Obama.  I would call it a draw, but the group, in Arlington, Virginia, felt otherwise.  If that view prevails, McCain's problems will only deepen.  My feeling is that the debate will have no effect, and that McCain, if he is to win, will have to win on the campaign trail and with ads.  He needs drama in his campaign - a whistlestop across the nation, with Sarah at his side. 

10:37 P.M. ET:   I'll be monitoring the reaction from the TV pundits, but my own feeling is that the debate changed nothing.  Both men performed respectably.  There was not a single spark.  Obama is smooth, but lacks experience and knowledge.  McCain has both, but lacks poetry.  Bill Kristol is on now, correctly criticizing the bland nature of the questions.

10:32 P.M. ET:   We're getting to the point in the debate where fatigue starts to set in.  Neither candidate has scored a knockout blow, in part because the questions didn't allow for one.  McCain is now making his final statement.  Effective and moving.  Debate over.

10:26 P.M. ET:   Effective moment.  McCain goes over and pats a retired Navy chief on the back.  Very human.  Reminds the audience of McCain's life story.

10:22 P.M. ET:   McCain has the edge in this foreign-policy discussion.  He's firm, detailed, and passionate.  I just wish he could phrase things as well as Obama, who is really saying nothing, but saying it well.

10:17 P.M. ET:   McCain continues on Pakistan.  He's good, but there are no great lines, no zingers, no effective use of language.  It's a term paper, which is McCain's liability when he speaks. 

10:14 P.M. ET:   McCain is discussing Pakistan, and comes off far more knowledgeable and reasoned than Obama.  Here McCain is developing a real advantage.  We'll see if he can maintain it. 

10:05 P.M. ET:  McCain is up.  I wish he'd stop using the phrase "my friends."  It's grating and makes him sound like a typical politician.  However, he speaks with authority on defense and foreign issues.  They have a good debate going on foreign issues.  I'm hoping for a McCain knockout here.  Stand by.

10:00 P.M. ET:  The debate is half over.  A draw at best.  They're now on foreign policy, which should be McCain's strength, but he fell into a trap by allowing Obama to exploit dissatisfaction with the Iraq War. 

9:55 P.M. ET:    Obama is speaking on health insurance.  On this he's detailed and very effective.  McCain is up.  He's knowledgeable, but I can't follow what he's saying about his health plan.  The debate, frankly, is not that exciting.  There are no sparks, no great moments.  Those are the things McCain needs in order to pull away.

9:50 P.M. ET:    Exchanges on energy policy.  Both men are effective, but McCain is speaking with more passion.  The problem is, he's held back by a less-than-great speaking style.  He's not losing, but he's not putting Obama away.

9:40 P.M. ET:    Obama is talking taxes, and presents his tax plan.  On this he's very effective because he's talking details.  He also speaks logically.  You can follow what he's saying.  Obama isn't winning the debate, but he's not losing.  He's not letting McCain get ahead.  Now McCain speaks, and speaks with some passion, about taxes and entitlements, and he's good.   

9:35 P.M. ET:   Obama gives a good answer on sharing of sacrifice.  McCain is now up talking about taxes, and he is effective.  McCain simply knows more.  If he can combine that knowledge with some music, and some passion, he'll be fine. 

9:29 P.M. ET:  McCain is answering a question from Fiora of Chicago, whom I personally know.  McCain is far more substantive than Obama, but Obama is much more smooth. And I'm afraid he's a better showman.  He has that buttery approach that is pleasant to the ear. 

9:21 P.M. ET:  McCain on the attack against Obama's spending record.  He's pretty effective.  Not great, but at least he's come alive.  He's not taking prisoners tonight.  I wish he were more articulate and had better, more precise attack lines, but for McCain this is good.

9:16 P.M. ET:  Obama is talking about the economy, defending his record.  His defense is deceptive.  He claims he never championed Freddie and Fannie, which is untrue.  Now McCain replies.  A reasonable but not brilliant answer.

9:12 P.M. ET:  Now McCain comes alive.  He attacks Obama on the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac issues.  Notes the campaign cash Obama got from those institutions.  Good answer.  Keep it up, Mac.

9:08 P.M. ET:   The debate begins.  Town hall format.  First question deals with the economy.  Obama gives a smooth reply, but doesn't say much.  However, he hammers the point about helping the middle class.  He attacks McCain.  McCain replies.  It isn't good.  He simply will not attack Obama, even though Obama blocked many of the mortgage reforms that would have prevented the current crisis.  If he doesn't start attacking, he's cooked.

9:01 P.M. ET:   Tom Brokaw is introducing the debate.

8:52 P.M. ET:  We're about to start live blogging of the presidential debate.  The debate starts in eight minutes.

YOU MUST READ THIS!

Posted at 6:56 p.m. ET

From a 2002 article published by George Mason University's History News Network.  It deals with Chesa Boudin, son of Kathy Boudin and David Gilbert, members of the Weather Underground, serving time for for the murder of two police officers and a Brinks guard.  Now read the rest:

As for Chesa, he’s been raised for the past 21 years by two of his parents’ radical colleagues. Chesa’s adoptive mother — Bernardine Dohrn, whose sultry likeness once hung in every US post office – is currently the director of the Children and Family Justice Center at Northwestern University. His adoptive father, Bill Ayers, is a professor of education at the University of Illinois, Chicago.

Familiar names? 

As many will recall, publication of Ayers’s Fugitive Days – a book that celebrated, among other things, the Weather Underground’s 1972 bombing of the Pentagon — coincided directly with the September 11th tragedies. Ironically, the New York Times had run a glowing profile of Ayers and Dohrn (a puff for the book) that very morning. The piece featured a color photo of the affluent, middle-aged couple holding hands beside a headline that read: “No Regrets for a Love of Explosives.” Halfway down the column, Ayers told the Times’s Dinitia Smith: “I don’t regret setting bombs. I feel we didn’t do enough.”

Recently, when Ayers sat for yet another Times interview — this one to discuss the triumph of Chesa’s Rhodes Scholarship — he showed up wearing a red-star revolutionary pin.

Nothing to see here, nothing to see.  Just an ornament.  Let's not have guilt by jewelry.

And more:

Ayers and Dohrn were there at the founding of the Weather Underground. At a 1969 “War Council” that helped launch the organization, Dohrn raised three fingers in a “fork salute” to Charles Manson, whom she proposed as a revolutionary inspiration. She went on to joke about Manson’s victims and dubbed them the “Tate Eight” after Sharon Tate, the pregnant actress whom members of the Manson tribe stabbed in the womb with a fork. “Dig it,” said Dohrn at the time. “First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them, they even shoved a fork into a victim’s stomach! Wild!”

Later that same year, Ayers attempted to extort money from the Vietnam Moratorium Committee — demanding $20,000 to abstain from violence during a planned peace protest. After rejecting this demand, a member of the Moratorium group asked Ayers what he really wanted. “To kill all rich people,” Ayers responded. When another peace activist pointed out that Ayers himself came from wealth, the radical answered with an angry slogan: “Bring the war home. Kill your parents.”

But times change, even for people like Ayers and Dohrn.  By the 1980s, they blazed new paths of glory:

Dohrn and Ayers had realized, by this time, that radical was no longer chic. They’d already surrendered to the FBI the previous year. Charges against Ayers were dropped. (“Guilty as hell. Free as a bird. America is a great country,” Ayers said when interviewed by David Horowitz ten years ago.) Dohrn, meanwhile, pled guilty to aggravated battery and bail-jumping, but received only a fine and probation. Two years after her surrender, she spent seven months in jail for refusing to give information to a grand jury concerning at-large members of the Weathermen organization.

So the crimes continued well past the sixties.

For Barack Obama, these are just guys in the neighborhood.

Pathetic.

October 7, 2008.      Permalink          

THE PIT BULL - WITH CHARM

Posted at 6:18 p.m. ET

Sarah, Sarah, Sarah.  What can I say?  Of the four candidates at the top of their tickets, I think she's got the best political smarts of all.  She's been on the attack, and I'm sure (I hope) the campaign is doing internal polling showing that the attack is working.  ABC News reports: 

At an outdoor rally before thousands of enthusiastic supporters in Jacksonville, Florida this morning, Palin raised her now-regular criticism tying Obama to Ayers, a founding member of the Weather Underground group which claimed responsibility for bombings at the Pentagon and U.S. Capitol in the early 1970s.

Palin called Ayers one of Obama's "earliest supporters" for hosting a 1995 meeting kicking off Obama's bid for the Illinois State Senate. She mocked claims this week by the Obama campaign that the Democratic presidential nominee did not know about Ayers' past before the 1995 meeting.

"Now our opponent's campaign is claiming for the first time, Barack Obama wasn't aware of Ayers' radical background. Barack recently remembered him as just a guy in the neighborhood," Palin said. "Wait a minute there. You mean to tell me he didn't know he had launched his own political career in the living room of a domestic terrorist?"

That's a great line, ay?

"You know, what's next, claiming that he didn't know two of his biggest supporters were running Fannie Mae, the subprime mortgage giant? Palin said. "Maybe he thought they were just guys in the Washington neighborhood."

Wonderful, wonderful.  Go Sarah!

"And since he got called out on his plans to meet unconditionally with terror state leaders like Ahmadinejad, will he now claim he was unaware of his radical background?" Palin added, in mocking reference to Obama saying at a Democratic primary debate last year that he would meet leaders of rogue states without preconditions.

Finally...

"Ladies and gentlemen, this election is about the truthfulness and judgment needed in our next president," Palin concluded. "John McCain has it and Barack Obama doesn't."

You may all applaud now.  I hope McCain is that effective tonight.

October 7, 2008.      Permalink          

NOTE AT 4:55 P.M. ET:  For a terrific little video showing how Sarah Palin handles a heckler, go here.  I say she's the best man we've got.

UPDATE AT 4:33 P.M. ET:  The Down closed down 508 points.  Bloomberg reports:  "U.S. stocks fell, sending the Standard & Poor's 500 Index below 1,000 for the first time since 2003, on speculation banks and real-estate companies are running short of money as the credit crisis worsens."

UPDATE AT 3:06 P.M. ET:  Roller coaster.  Dow down 306.

UPDATE AT 2:37 P.M. ET:  The Dow has rebounded and is now down 156 points.

UPDATE AT 2:34 P.M. ET:  From AP:  LAS VEGAS -- Nevada state authorities are raiding the Las Vegas headquarters of an organization that works to get low-income people to vote.  A Nevada secretary of state's office spokesman said Tuesday that investigators are looking for evidence of voter fraud at the office of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, also called ACORN.  No one was at the ACORN office when state agents arrived with a search warrant and began carting records and documents away.  Secretary of State spokesman Bob Walsh says ACORN is accused of submitting multiple voter registrations with false and duplicate names.  The raid comes two months after state and federal authorities formed a task force to pursue election-fraud allegations in Nevada.

COMMENT:  Obama was a lawyer for this group.  ACORN fraud issues have cropped up in many states.  This could become a major story if the vote is close on election night.

UPDATE AT 2:16 P.M. ET:  The Dow is down 300 points.

UPDATE AT 2:09 P.M. ET:  The Gallup tracker, just released, has Obama up nine points, tying his largest lead yet in this poll. 

COMMENT:  Three of the four trackers out today confirm a large lead for Obama.  Only Hotline shows a small lead. 

UPDATE AT 10:40 A.M. ET:  The stock market is currently up 33.85.  No great rally, but no loss either.

UPDATE AT 10:25 A.M. ET:  Two new trackers, just out, show dramatically different results.  Battleground has Obama up seven, same as yesterday.  But Hotline, which had Obama up six yesterday, has him up only two today.

COMMENT:  We always stress that polls are snapshots in time, and that only trends count.  However, please note that four new polls, Hotline, Democracy Corps, CBS, and Reuters/Zogby/CSPAN, show Obama with a lead of only two or three points.  Start of a trend?  I have no way of knowing, but stand by.

UPDATE AT 9:32 A.M. ET:  Rasmussen's tracker is out, showing Obama up eight, no change from yesterday, and consistent with most (but not all) other polls.  We are looking today to see if any tracker shows a drop for Obama, given yesterday's publication of the Zogby and CBS polls, both showing him up only three.

NOTE AT 9:02 A.M. ET:  Reader Alan Weick has written an excellent note on John McCain, in response to comments here.  Mr. Weick writes:

Dear Mr.  Katz,

I agree with all you've said regarding what McCain must do to win.  I just doubt that he is constitutionally able to do it.  McCain  strikes me as a man of unique principles that were forged in the crucible of his military experience.  While no one can question his ability to fight, I think it's clear the he believes there is, at least in terms of campaigning in a  democracy, a set of "Marquis of Queensberry" rules that honor requires him to obey, regardless of whether it benefits him or not.  

His apology for a  supporter's use of Obama's middle name strikes us as bizzare, but it reveals a  unique sense of propriety that would certainly not be shown were the  situation reversed.  I don't agree with him.  And it certainly looks like bowing to political correctness and, horribly, MSM opinion.  But what else explains this reluctance to engage in the same bare-knuckled tactics  as his opponent?

Best,

Alan  Weick

Well stated, I think.  McCain must liberate McCain.

THE GUY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD

Posted at 8:44 a.m. ET

That's the way Barack Obama describes radical pal Bill Ayers - just a guy he knows in the neighborhood.  But Sol Stern, in the Manhattan Institute's excellent City Journal, has a somewhat more detailed take on the mysterious Professor Ayers.  Stern takes on a New York Times whitewash of the Ayers/Obama relationship:

The article explored the putative relationship between Ayers and Barack Obama during the time they worked together on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a five-year philanthropic venture that, starting in 1995, distributed over $160 million in school-improvement grants to the Windy City’s public schools. Ayers wrote the grant proposal that secured seed money for the schools and ran the implementation arm of the project; Obama became chairman of the board that distributed the grants. Not only did the Times exonerate the Democratic presidential candidate of having anything like a “close” relationship with Ayers—their paths merely “crossed” while working on the Challenge, the paper said—but it also bestowed the honorific of “school reformer” on the ex-bomber.

And...

Calling Bill Ayers a school reformer is a bit like calling Joseph Stalin an agricultural reformer.

And...

For instance, at a November 2006 education forum in Caracas, Venezuela, with President Hugo Chávez at his side, Ayers proclaimed his support for “the profound educational reforms under way here in Venezuela under the leadership of President Chávez. We share the belief that education is the motor-force of revolution. . . . I look forward to seeing how you continue to overcome the failings of capitalist education as you seek to create something truly new and deeply humane.”

Capitalist education?  Is that what I learned in physics class?  That miserable moneygrubber Einstein, did we expose him!

Ayers’s school reform agenda focuses almost exclusively on the idea of teaching for “social justice” in the classroom. This has nothing to do with the social-justice ideals of the Sermon on the Mount or Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Rather, Ayers and his education school comrades are explicit about the need to indoctrinate public school children with the belief that America is a racist, militarist country and that the capitalist system is inherently unfair and oppressive.

Aren't you shocked by that?

Despite the Times story, American voters still don’t have an accurate picture of the relationship between Obama and Ayers during their work on the Annenberg Challenge...

...Meanwhile, in one of the Democratic primary debates, Obama said that Ayers was just “a guy I know in the neighborhood”—which certainly qualifies as one of the biggest fibs told by any of the candidates so far.

Finally...

Is it too much to hope that one of the moderators of the two remaining debates will press Obama for a fuller accounting of his work with Bill Ayers on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, and also ask Obama what he thinks of Ayers’s views on school reform? If the mainstream media deem it important that voters know which newspapers one of the vice presidential candidates reads, they certainly ought to be demanding more information from a presidential candidate about whom he collaborated with in distributing $160 million to the public schools.

Challenging The One?  Are you kidding?  Don't you know what the new rules are?

Yuch.

October 7, 2008.      Permalink          

THE RACE

Posted at 7:24 a.m. ET

We don't have to be reminded as to where the political race is today, the day of the second presidential debate, to be held in Nashville.  Obama has opened up a lead of, perhaps, six to eight points over McCain.  Put another way, McCain has slipped back, leaving a six- to eight-point gap with Obama.  There are some new, more optimistic polls, but they are outliers.  CBS, reporting yesterday, has Obama up only three, as do the Democracy Corps and Zogby polls.  But a new NBC poll has him up six.  We'll publish tracking polls as they become available later today.

Dick Morris and his wife, Eileen McGann, have written a perceptive column that, I think, gives a good picture of where the race stands, and where it's likely to go. 

THE polls now all indicate an Obama win on Nov. 4; some even suggest a landslide. But there's a strong chance the race will tighten back up this month.

Notice the term, "a strong chance."  Not a guarantee.  Much will depend on McCain's performance, somewhat lackluster thus far, and whether the economy goes into a tailspin.

But October may see the end of Obama's surge: He's peaking too soon.

Once the Democrat is seen as the clear leader and likely winner, the spotlight will inevitably shift to him. And he may not benefit from the increased attention.

Obama didn't do well when he last emerged on top, in later Democratic primaries. The more it appeared that Hillary Clinton would lose, the more voter concerns over Obama's relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright cost him state after state in the later primaries.

Obama still beat Clinton because he'd already amassed a sufficient delegate lead earlier on. That dynamic doesn't apply in the general election.

From his mouth to you know whose ears.

The Democrat gained by standing back during the rescue-bill drama. But now voters (with a strong push from the McCain campaign) will be giving him a closer look - and some won't like what they see.

Correct.  Obama has always lost support when people look closely.  It's like having a good mechanic look at a used car.

So Obama will be in the spotlight on how he'd handle the economy and on whether he is part of the political mainstream.

Voters will still be in the mood for throwing the Republicans out of office, so Obama may not fall all the way down - but October will be no cakewalk for the Democrat.

It is up to John McCain to make Obama's life miserable.  And the first thing McCain must do, starting with the debate tonight, is to ignore the press and its opinions.  A negative editorial in The New York Times will not hurt him.  I mean, who does he think reads those things?  But a perception on the part of the public that he's a quitter, someone who refuses to fight for a victory, will kill him. 

October 7, 2008.      Permalink          

UPDATE AT 7:05 A.M. ET:  Oct. 7 (Bloomberg) -- European stocks and U.S. index futures rose as Australia's bigger-than-expected interest-rate cut spurred speculation central banks around the world will reduce borrowing costs to cushion their economies from the credit freeze.

MONDAY,  OCTOBER 6,  2008

INEXCUSABLE

Posted at 6:02 p.m. ET

James Taranto at the excellent Best of the Web Today, rips apart the AP's inexcusable attempt to label Sarah Palin a racist.  I'd like to report that the AP story was a new low in campaign coverage, but there are challenges to that position every day, so let's not award any prizes yet. 

Palin had accused Obama of "palling around" with Bill Ayers and his wife, Bernadine Dohrn, who are unrepentant about their role in the sixties radical group, Weather Underground.  Douglass Daniel of the AP charged that Palin's statement "carried a racially tinged subtext that John McCain himself may come to regret."  Taranto:

Reader, Mr. and Mrs. Ayers are persons of pallor. What could possibly be racist about Palin's criticizing Obama for associating with a couple of despicable characters who are white? This question brings us into the weird world of Douglass Daniel's imagination:

Palin's words avoid repulsing voters with overt racism. But is there another subtext for creating the false image of a black presidential nominee "palling around" with terrorists while assuring a predominantly white audience that he doesn't see their America?

In a post-Sept. 11 America, terrorists are envisioned as dark-skinned radical Muslims, not the homegrown anarchists of Ayers' day 40 years ago. With Obama a relative unknown when he began his campaign, the Internet hummed with false e-mails about ties to radical Islam of a foreign-born candidate.

Daniel does no reporting to back this up. He accuses Palin of racism because in his mind, terrorist implies Muslim, Muslim implies dark-skinned, and dark-skinned implies black.

And...

...it seems his claim is that her speech was racist because it somehow called attention to Obama's race. To be sure, there are people who are prejudiced against Obama because he is black. Shame on them. People like them used to have a lot more influence on elections than they do now, both because they were more numerous and because in many parts of the country they disfranchised blacks (including through terrorism!).

Yet we'd venture that there are voters who are troubled by Obama's palling around with terrorists irrespective of his, or anyone else's race. Does the public not have a right to know because some part of the public may be racist?

Apparently not, according to the AP, which has not withdrawn or apologized for the outrageous story.

October 6, 2008.      Permalink          

UPDATE AT 4:01 P.M. ET:  The market rebounded strongly, probably driven by bargain hunters.  Tentative figures show it closed down about 300 points. 

Further update at 4:19:  The final figure will be about 370 points.

POLLS 

Posted at 3:20 p.m. ET

All trackers for the day are out.  Gallup, the last to report, shows Obama up eight, 50-42.  Gallup notes that both McCain's and Obama's percentage has remained relatively stable for ten days.

All trackers show Obama up six to eight points.  A new Democracy Corps poll shows him up only three, but that is the outlier.

As noted earlier, the results are irrational.  McCain is being blamed because he is a Republican, even though the evidence points to the Democrats as those who contributed greatly to the financial crisis by refusing to legislate proper oversight of the mortgage mess.  The public tends to blame the party in the White House for the economy.

The continuing turmoil can only hurt McCain, no matter what he does, and his campaign remains unimaginative.  A star has been born in Sarah Palin, and there is already buzz about her for the future.  I love her, but let me caution that political figures subjected to this much ridicule often have difficulty getting traction.  We should recall that even Ronald Reagan had difficulty convincing the Republican Party to let him have the reins in 1980.  He had been subjected to career-long ridicule over his movie-actor past, even after having served two terms as governor of California.  And he was seen by many, even within his party, as a big of a crackpot.  He was not. 

One striking thing about the polls:  Only one, Rasmussen, has Obama at more than 50 percent -   has him at 52 - demonstrating that the polls are no great endorsement of Barack Obama.  It's an "anti" vote that we're seeing. 

It's important to remain committed and optimistic.  There are many political lifetimes to go before election day.  One never knows what can turn this race around, including the perception of a foreign threat.  At the same time, wise political players are always planning.  If the worst should happen in the election, what do we do next?  How do we position ourselves?  How do we deal with an increasingly toxic press, which has essentially collapsed as an independent institution? 

The Reagan Revolution was based on decades of thought, articles, arguments, plans, and the development of a coherent philosophy. 

We still hope to win this election.  We will fight.  But we will also plan, and write.

October 6, 2008.      Permalink          

UPDATE AT 2:49 P.M. ET:  The market is now down 730 points.  Have a nice day.

UPDATE AT 11:37 A.M. ET:  The stock market is currently down 424 points. 

UPDATE AT 10:54 A.M. ET:  From The New York Times:  Wall Street stumbled again on Monday as the banking crisis expanded its grip on the world economy, sending stocks sharply lower around the world and pushing oil prices below $90 for the first time since February.  The Dow Jones industrial average lost more than 300 points in early trading, falling below 10,000 for the first time since 2004.

UPDATE AT 10:46 A.M. ET:  Two new trackers are now out.  The results are grim.  Battleground, which is erratic, has Obama up seven.  It had him up three on Saturday.  Hotline has Obama up six.  It was seven yesterday.  Sarah Palin didn't make a dent in Obama's lead.

COMMENT:  The results are irrational.  They're not so much a vote for Obama, whose support is actually quite thin, but a rejection of the GOP.  The economy now dominates everything, and every day of bad news helps Obama.  McCain is being blamed for things that, by any objective standard, can be laid at the doorstep of the Democratic refusal to reform the mortgage markets.  But the public can't react intelligently to what it isn't being told.

UPDATE AT 9:34 A.M. ET:  The Rasmussen tracker, just out, shows Obama up eight points, 52-44.  "This is the highest level of support ever recorded for Obama and is his largest lead of the year."  If the Rasmussen poll is accurate, the vice-presidential debate had no measurable effect on the race.  We await the other three trackers, published later today.

UPDATE AT 8:01 A.M. ET:  Oct. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Stocks tumbled around the world, the euro fell to a 13-month low against the dollar and oil dropped below $90 a barrel as the yearlong credit market seizure caused bank bailouts to spread through Europe. Government bonds rallied.

THE ELECTION

Posted at 7:33 a.m. ET

I'm reminded of the famous David Low cartoon, published in London's Evening Standard, on June 18th, 1940, just after France fell to Hitler.  You've probably seen it.  It depicts the defiance of the British people, but also depicts an understanding of their situation:

"Very well, alone." 

That pretty much tells the story of the McCain campaign.  If they win this fight, they must do it alone.  Usually, a campaign can get at least part of its story out through the mainstream press.  In this election, we are faced with a level of press corruption so great that, in my view, it threatens the future of the nation itself.  I am not given to extreme statements, but, for reasons I will discuss at another time, I believe that to be true,

Voters do not get their news directly.   They get it through media.  If you want to know what that can do to a nation, simply look at what people in Muslim countries are told by their press every day, and how it distorts their world view.

Walter Lippmann once called news "the picture in our heads."  The media creates an image for us.  Our decisions are based on that image.  If the image is reasonably correct, we can decide wisely.  If it isn't, we cannot.   

In this campaign, it is impossible for McCain to get his message out through the media because major press organizations simply add the Obama talking points to many stories, making McCain into a liar, or even worse.  Consider the AP's outrageous contention, posted over the weekend, that Sarah Palin's accurate charge that Obama has associated with a known terrorist, is tinged with racism.  Say what?  What does racism have to do with that?  Bill Ayers, the T-guy in question, is quite white.  It is an example of the kind of journalism we're getting these days.

Jim Geraghty, of NRO's Campaign Spot, notes:

Palin is bringing up Barack Obama's long connection to William Ayers... okay.

I don't doubt that not enough Americans know about Obama and his ties to Ayers, and what an unrepentant domestic terrorist and SOB Ayers is. But that message is going to come up against a media that is hostile, determined to downplay the ties and/or willing to lie. (What the heck got into CNN lately? The past few weeks, they're getting things 180 degrees flat wrong, again and again, about easily verifiable facts and the mistakes always benefit Obama. When all the mistakes point in the same direction, one suspects they're not really mistakes.)

No, not really mistakes.  When people feel they're possessed of a higher truth, they're willing to play many games with the lower truths.   

So the McCain campaign must run alone in this last month before the election.  Just ignore the press.  Speak over its head.

But how?  There's a limit to money. 

Tomorrow night, McCain debates Obama.  The gloves must come off.  He must make Obama the subject of the campaign - the Obama we don't know.  He must completely ignore press criticism, and even go after the press in speeches, citing, by name, some particularly outrageous examples of bias.

I've suggested before, and will again, that McCain and Palin run a whistlestop campaign across the country, even inviting voters to come aboard at stops, and meet the candidates.

This last month will have to be retail politics at its best.  Eliminate the middle man, the biased media.  It can be done.  Truman did it.  Reagan did it.  The press didn't hate Reagan, but reporters privately laughed at him.  The public didn't.

Golda Meir, the late prime minister of Israel, was once asked about press criticism of Israel's defense moves, which often involved military strikes.  Didn't the criticism bother her?  She replied, "I'd rather have a bad editorial than a good obituary."

McCain must start thinking in those terms.  Don't worry about press hatred.  Relish it.  Bill Kristol today quotes Sarah Palin this way:

I asked at the end of our conversation whether Palin, fresh off her own debate, had any advice for McCain. “I’m going to tell him the same thing he told me. I talked to him just a few minutes before I walked out there on stage. And he just said: ‘Have fun. Be yourself, and have fun.’ And Senator McCain can do the same.” She paused, and I was about to thank her for the interview, but she had one more thing to say. “Only maybe I’d add just a couple more words, and that would be: ‘Take the gloves off.’ ”

Senator McCain, she's the best man you've got.  Listen to her.

October 6, 2008.      Permalink          

NOTE AT 5:57 A.M. ET:  Eagle-eyed reader Gregory Koster caught a whopping error in the final piece I posted last night, called "Sarah."  I made reference to the famous Liberty Magazine poll of 1936.  Of course I meant the Literary Digest poll.  The error has been corrected. 

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      of The New York Times.

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